Paper Clippings The Blog of The Crossroads Cultural Center

Paper Clippings, more than a classical blog, is a service providing valuable reading material in order to help readers reach a judgment about current affairs. Comments and discussion are more than welcome.

Amy Sullivan is onto something in pointing out that many non-Republican people in mainstream America are "culturally" unconfortable with the Democratic party. The comments are also quite representative of what she is talking about: lots of aggressive secular liberals who think one can rely on "science" to live free from the bonds of religious superstition. What kind of schools produced people that are at the same time so ignorant and so presumptuous?

A Harvard curriculum committee recommended that every student be required, as part of his or her general education, to take one course in an area that the committee styled "Reason and Faith." The Harvard Crimson, the university's paper, doesn't like the idea.

Alasdair MacIntyre wants to "de-fragment" American Catholic universities. The least convincing part of his argument is when he says that what is lacking is the will to change. What is really lacking is the awareness that faith is the "integrative and unifying" factor that can give unity to our understanding of reality (see "Why the Church," Ch. 10). But this must first of all happens as an experience.

But it seems to me the big "why" questions are, why are we here? And what is our purpose in life?

It's not a question that deserves an answer.

Well, I think most people would say those questions are central to the way we think about our lives. Those are the big existential questions, but they are also questions that go beyond science.

If you mean, what is the purpose of the existence of the universe, then I'm saying that is quite simply begging the question. If you happen to be religious, you think that's a meaningful question. But the mere fact that you can phrase it as an English sentence doesn't mean it deserves an answer. Those of us who don't believe in a god will say that is as illegitimate as the question, why are unicorns hollow? It just shouldn't be put. It's not a proper question to put. It doesn't deserve an answer.